How much do you know about Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions, and people with high EI can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, and adjust emotions to adapt to environments. EI gained popularity in the 1995 best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, written by science journalist Daniel Goleman, who defined EI as the array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance. Various models have been developed to measure EI, including the trait model, ability model, and mixed model. Studies have shown that people with high EI have greater mental health, job performance, and leadership skills, although no causal relationships have been shown. EI is typically associated with empathy because it involves an individual connecting their personal experiences with those of others. Criticisms have centered on whether EI is a real intelligence, and whether it has incremental validity over IQ and the Big Five personality traits. However, meta-analyses have found that certain measures of EI have validity even when controlling for IQ and personality.The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Business and Beyond

• Emotional intelligence (EI) is a set of abilities related to understanding, using, and managing emotions in oneself and others, and it is increasingly recognized as an essential part of business leadership, negotiation, and dispute resolution.

• EI is particularly important for global leaders who need to interact with diverse cultures and work with diverse teams and organizations.

• Studies have shown a significant relationship between bullying and emotional intelligence, with lower EI being related to both bullying behavior and victimization in bullying.

• Mixed results have been found in studies on the relationship between EI and job performance, but overall, EI is a better predictor than most commonly used hiring methods, such as letters of reference or cover letters.

• Employees high in EI are more aware of their own and others' emotions, show more confidence in their roles, and have better resources to cope with stressful situations and demanding tasks, leading to better job performance.

• The relationship between job performance and EI is not as strong as suggested, and it requires the presence of other constructs to raise important outcomes, such as teamwork effectiveness under job contexts of high managerial work demands.

• While EI does play a positive role in leadership effectiveness, what actually makes a leader effective is what they do with their role, rather than their interpersonal skills and abilities.

• EI is associated with better mental and physical health, with trait EI showing the strongest association.

• Low levels of EI are associated with drug dependence and low self-esteem, but EI scores can improve as levels of addiction lessen with treatment.

• Students with higher emotional intelligence show higher academic performance at school, with the effect being larger for humanities than for science/maths areas of study and for ability emotional intelligence than for rating scales of emotional intelligence.

• Critics have argued that the predictive power of EI has been overstated, with data held in proprietary databases and unavailable for independent researchers to verify.

• The relationship between EI and leadership outcomes has not been shown using robust research designs, and the influence of personality and other factors on the relationship needs to be considered.The Validity and Criticism of Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional Intelligence (EI) might not be necessary for leadership effectiveness due to the "curse of emotion" phenomenon.

• Ability-measures of EI have the worst correlation with transformational leadership.

• The validity of EI estimates does not include the effects of IQ or the big five personality which correlate with EI measures and leadership.

• Self-reported and Trait EI measures retain a fair amount of predictive validity for job performance after controlling Big Five traits and IQ.

• EI may serve as an identifying tool for understanding who is likely to deal effectively with colleagues.

• EI can be deliberately developed, specifically facilitating thinking with emotions and monitoring and regulation of emotions in the workplace.

• Self-report EI measures and personality measures have been said to converge because they both purport to measure personality traits.

• Studies have shown that general intelligence, agreeableness, and gender can reliably predict the measure of EI ability.

• EI has substantial relative importance in predicting job performance.

• Emotional intelligence is negatively associated with all three dark triad domains of personality, but not all 'dark' personalities lack emotional intelligence.

• EI is positively associated with secure attachment in adults but negatively associated with insecure attachment styles.

• EI is criticized for assuming that it's a type of intelligence or cognitive ability.

• EI is not a moral quality but a skill.

• EI may only be measuring conformity and not necessarily the ability to perform tasks related to the knowledge that is assessed.